A key focus of this blog is the history of Jacksons in Ireland. I am specially curious about those who may be related to Sir Thomas Jackson (1841-1915). His life is key to understanding how a dozen or so young men, sons of Irish tenant farmers, shaped the future of international banking in the Far East in the late 1800s. I also use this blog as a place for playful posts: book and restaurant reviews, recipes, and events in my life. WARNING: Note the date of each post. Some may be outdated.

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Monday, January 21, 2013

Hong Kong & Ireland: Two British Colonies

An excerpt from a
speech delivered to the Hong Kong branch of the Royal Asiatic Society in
November 2012. Since then, I rewrote it a bit to better suit the format of a blog.

The early days of the British Colony of Hong Kong benefited
from the fact that men such as Thomas Jackson, the renowned Hong Kong banker of
his day, grew up in Ireland experiencing life on both sides of the table –
Colony and Empire. It is also worth noting that the 19th century government
of Hong Kong was thick with Irishmen. At least eight
of the early Governors had Irish ancestry. Clearly, most of them knew how
to play the game. It also probably helped that by the time that Hong Kong
became a Colony in 1841, England had already learned a trick or two from its long-term,
botched management of Ireland, not to mention having learned from the
taxation-without-representation debacle in America. Been there. Done that.

When I look at Irish history up to 1841, the year that Thomas
Jackson was born and Hong Kong became a Colony, there are three long-term,
inter-generational realities worth mentioning. Their effects shaped
the values and actions of these Hong Kong Irishmen, whether they had arrived to
govern or to conduct trade. They included the experience of:

Unfair land ownership policies coupled with a lack of urbanization.
For centuries in Ireland, power and wealth had been based on owning land.
The laws were heavily skewed in the favour of the landlord, who was all
too often absent and based in England. The Irish economy was essentially a
rural economy, with little urbanization. Ireland had no coal, or major
industries, aside from the linen trade, so the fuel to build cities simply
wasn’t there. The country’s culture was essentially rural.

The impact of proxy wars.These wars which were fought by France
and England and others in Ireland over several centuries resulted in a
dangerously militarized countryside. This meant that most males were
skilled at fighting, either as members of a formal army on the one side,
or as guerilla activists on the other.

A cultural chasm that divided people along religious, political,
and economic lines. As a result of the proxy wars as well as the effects
of land ownership policies, Ireland was deeply divided. This polarization obscured
the fact that policies governing land ownership and voting rights were the
more likely roots of the divide - not religion. Religion was often
exploited as a diversionary proxy for what was really wrong.

It is easy to see how Ireland’s history could have served as
a cautionary tale to Irishmen in places of power in Hong Kong. Add to this, the
fact that most of these Irishmen who served in Hong Kong had lived in Ireland
during the Great Famine, or had family who did. The focus of the book that I am currently writing is Sir
Thomas Jackson, so I will stick to how all this influenced him.

Jackson served as the Chief Manager of HSBC in the mid to
late 1880s. At the time, the Bank could almost have been called The Irish Bank of Hong Kong - at least going
by the numbers of Irishmen serving in the upper levels of management.Many of them came on his coattails. Most of these
managers were also related to each other, partly by blood and partly by the fact
that they’d grown up on neighbouring farms. Photos of them in Hong Kong wearing
suits and holding top hats can be deceiving. Three realities particular to
their class are worth mentioning:

Until they had come to
Hong Kong, most of them had been wearing shirts that were hand-sewn by
their sisters.

Their education was not at
the prestigious schools favoured by the British banking class.

Most of them grew up
eating their family meals in the company of the hired help.

Andrew Hugh
Gilmore JACKSON, the man on the right, was a nephew of Sir Thomas. Like
his uncle, he grew up as a farmer’s son, and then worked at HSBC. Later, he
worked as an independent broker. He died in Hong Kong of Hong typhoid fever
in 1918. He is buried at Happy Valley, just across the street from the Race
Track that he and his uncle often frequented. The surname of the person on the
left is MOORE. I know nothing more of him.

I’d like to touch briefly on four ways in which Jackson’s
childhood experiences, both at the macro-level of Irish history, and the micro
level of life on his family farm, influenced his actions as a banker. This is
just a taste. There is much, much more to say and to learn about all this.

Firstly, he never stopped his practice of reaching across the class
divide. He usually ate his mid-day tiffin with the young bank clerks, even when
he was Chief Manager. He had a saying
that rubbing the old file against the young flint brings out the best
qualities of both. Members of the Chinese
merchant community also appreciated his inclusiveness. At a banquet in 1902, they celebrated the unvarying kindness and courtesy
exhibited by you towards us as a distinct class. Unlike many other
Europeans of his time and place, Jackson was remarkably free of racism.

Secondly, he and his board resisted the pressures to move the head
office from Hong Kong to London – even though the pressures to do so were
considerable. As realtors always say: location,
location, location. What this meant for the early Hong Kong banks was that the
ones that failed had head offices elsewhere and became too
disconnected to be attuned to the needs of the Chinese community. Unfortunately, HSBC
eventually had to leave the island as a result of WWII when Japanese troops overran Hong Kong, and imprisoned
their staff. Several HSBC staff lost their lives at this time. Some of these
men were also Jackson’s relations. One of them had been baptized with his name.

Thirdly, Jackson insisted on investing the bank’s profits where
those profits were made. One consequence
of the Bank’s policy of investing locally was that since local businesses felt
that they were supported and could trust in that ongoing support, they flourished.
As a result of the successes of local businesses, even more coin flowed into
the bank’s coffers. This commitment to the local community was another reason
why HSBC survived the currency crises of the 1890s, a time when many banks bit
the dust. Adding to this commitment, Jackson also set an ethical standard by
not lining his own pocket in side deals. Had he done so, he could have retired
as a much wealthier man, but he saw this as a conflict of interest and felt the
need to set an example.

Fourthly, he took good care of his staff. Pensions, decent pay,
medical care – you name it. Better than the norm. He set up a staff cafeteria, and
insisted on supplying good quality food. As his daughter described it, he was
so
much afraid that the clerks would be tempted to save money
by buying cheap and inadequate food instead of having the dinners they needed. When
he first retired, few men would have acted as he did just before taking his
leave. The Bank’s balance sheet was in great shape, thanks in part to
his efforts, but he deferred the announcement of the Bank’s profits so that his
successor could get the credit. You don’t have to be a genius to imagine the
positive effects of that on bank morale.

There is at least one last thing that may or may not be
fairly attributed to his roots. Lucky
Jackson, as he was also known, was a gifted currency trader. Did it help
that he had grown up hearing stories of a cousin from Co. Louth who ran silver
mines in South America? Did he learn as a result what kind of news mattered in
currency trades and what kind of news didn’t? I can only guess. And what about the
influence of his wife’s roots on his work? She was definitely a force in his
life. Did it also help that she was the child of a Singaporean merchant,
ship-chandler and ship captain and had several brothers and brother-in-laws who
shared all the latest gossip about ships, silk, tea, silver bullion and opium? Probably.
But more of that anon.

Grave marker at Stanley Military Cemetery in Hong
Kong. Thomas Jackson Houston, a great-nephew of Sir Thomas Jackson, died of
dysentery while a prisoner of war. He had been married in Hong Kong, and had
taken his wife, Margaret, who was about to give birth, to Australia for
safety. He arrived back in Hong Kong just in time to be captured. OBITUARY - DIED IN HONG
KONG Mr. And Mrs. J.K. Houston, 14 St.
Jude's Avenue have been informed of the death, in a camp at Hong Kong, of
their son, Mr. T.J. Houston, B.A. of the Colonial Administrative Service. Mr.
Houston had a brilliant scholastic career and in 1934 won a Mathematical
scholarship in the Cambridge University examinations. He was a pupil at
Methodist College and gained exhibitions in both his Junior and Senior
Certificate examinations. He entered Queens University in 1930 and two years
later was awarded a Major Scholarship at Christ's College, Cambridge. In June
1933, he obtained a first-class honours degree in mathematics and
mathematical physics at Queen's University.

About Me

Author And Researcher. I am currently writing a book on the life of Sir Thomas Jackson. He was the son of tenant farmers, born just before the Famine in South Armagh, who was knighted because he not only lead HSBC into the 20th Century, but was also responsible for assisting with the funding of much of the economic development in China & Japan in the late 1800s. My first published book was "Some Become Flowers: Living with Dying at Home".